from the because-he's-awesome dept

A few folks had sent over a recent article on Cracked, supposedly by the rapper Spose, about 7 things a record deal teaches you about the music industry. It's a decent enough article that basically shows you that, as you suspected, major labels take young impressionable artists, flatter the hell out of them, pressure them to sign deals, and then try to strip them of all originality and have people write songs for them that they think will sell. Nothing all that surprising. However, at the end, it also notes that since being dropped by his label (Universal Music), he's been able to build a sustainable career as a musician by retaining a small group of loyal "true" fans, and being able to actually write the music he (and his fans) like, while also not having nearly all of the money go to a middleman/gatekeeper.

However, soon after I read the Cracked version, a few others sent over a post on Spose's own blog, in which he notes that Cracked totally misrepresented the piece as if it was written by Spose himself, when really he'd just been interviewed for it and most of it was written by a Cracked writer -- who also added in a ton of lame jokes. Spose reposted a version without the lame jokes, highlighting the bits he actually wrote himself. Amusingly, there's a bit of symmetry here between the way Universal Music treated Spose and the way Cracked did -- in which they don't seem to trust him to speak in his own words, but feel the need to mold and shape the product for their audiences.

There’s no facilitator or middle-man between the artist and the fan anymore. If the fan likes you, they don’t need to be enabled by the label to like you. They can find you on Twitter or Soundcloud. I grew up listening to a lot of alt rock, so I think of the band Nottasurf when I think about one hit wonders. Now failing to follow up on a big success doesn’t mean you’re back to flipping burger, and it’s all thanks to the Internet.

My first big video ‘I’m Awesome’ got something like ten million views. When the single released on iTunes 850,000 people actually paid to download it. When I released my Mixtape recently, about 8,000 people bought it. So I was able to keep like, 1% of my fans paying. Just do the math: if you put out something for $10, and 8,000 fans buy it, that’s enough to sustain you as a musician. My album ‘The Audacity’ came out in 2012 sold the same number, $10 a piece. iTunes took a chunk, and then the cost of making that album (production, printing, studio time…) was probably six thousand. So I made a profit of $70,000.

I reinvested about $40,000 into new projects, but that left enough to cover rent and food and a nice Christmas. It’s not yacht-money, but I don’t have to play that game of trying to keep up appearances with fancy clothes and cars. That’s part of traditional rap nonsense, but my fans don’t expect that. The more I relate to my brokest fan, the more albums I sell.

I released the songs Universal hadn’t wanted in a free album called Yard Sale, and used that to advertise my Kickstarter. It brought in $28,000. And now that I have that small, loyal fan base I’m able to keep releasing music that’s uncompromised. I make all the money from my iTunes sales now too. I pay $35 to list it and get close to a dollar per sale. When I was with the label I made .16 cents per sale. I’ve made as much money in the last 3 years as Universal ever gave me.

It's worth noting that elsewhere in the discussion, he makes it clear that I'm Awesome got much of that attention prior to him signing with a label, so people can't claim that he's only got this following because of the label. We've heard similar things, such as how Amanda Palmer found that the support of a major label only helped temporarily, while many of the true fans who stuck with her had found out about her prior to signing with a major label.

None of this means that any musician can be successful. Of course, that was never the case. But the key point is that, under the old system, if, like Spose, the major label chewed you up and spit you out 11 months later, you were basically out of the music business. But, today, you have many more options. And that's what's so exciting these days -- the increase in options and opportunities for those able to take advantage of them. The ability to build a career that doesn't require a very small number of gatekeepers to anoint you is what makes it such a different world.

from the with-humor-and-sarcasm dept

We've mentioned for years that Techdirt content is regularly copied and placed on various spam blogs. They're all over the place, and it's not hard to find. If we listened to some people, we'd be spending all our time sending off DMCA notices and venting angrily on insular blogs about how much more successful we'd be if only everyone else were responsible for blocking that infringement. But, of course, we recognize that most of the spam blogs get no attention at all, and anyone who does actually stumble across them, and like them, will quickly realize that the content comes from somewhere else, and will eventually find their way here and (hopefully) stick around. In fact, the site that merely scrapes our stuff without credit will probably have what little reputation they might already have harmed even more by such poor internet etiquette.

Of course, every so often, we see such things happen with larger sites. A few months ago, for example, a well-known blog that we like (and have linked to quite often) posted an exact replica of one of our articles (word for word), but with one of their author's names on it. I won't say who it was, because it's not that important. We were a bit surprised by this, but mainly because we didn't see why they would want to hurt their own reputation like that, as people were bound to notice. I sent a quick email to the editor and the writer, saying that (1) we were absolutely fine with them keeping everything the way it was but (2) we just wanted to see if perhaps the item was posted in error because it seemed out of character (the site posts all original content). Within a few hours, we got multiple apologies as they explained the snafu (involving them using a new aggregator, and the writer sending one of our article to the editor just because he might be interested in the story, and he got confused, thinking it was the latest article). They also posted a really unnecessary public apology, which we told them they didn't need to do (in fact, we told them they could keep the original article up). Basically, no big deal in the end. No threats. No DMCA. No screaming about copyrights. Just a friendly email and knowledge of how reputations work and everything worked itself out.

Point being: rather than relying on copyright or screaming about infringement, there are often much more effective ways of dealing with such things. Take, for example, the way Cracked (one of our absolute favorite websites, and it should be one of yours too) recently handled the UK's Daily Mail's decision to copy a Cracked article on horrible tourists. Rather than going all DMCA, screaming about infringement, Cracked did what Cracked does best, and brought the funny, publishing a "sincere apology" to the Daily Mail admitting that Cracked authors get "fabulous space-time powers" and the most logical explanation for what happened was that Cracked contributor XJ Selman, went forward in time, copied the Daily Mail's Sunday column, then went back in time, and pre-published it 24 hours earlier. Obviously.

we at Cracked are in the wrong here. Yes, our Saturday article flat-out plagiarized The Daily Mail's Sunday article. But how did this happen?

You see, when you sign up to write articles for Cracked -- which absolutely anyone can do, more information on that here -- you don't simply get the opportunity to pen monkeyshines for one of the most popular comedy websites on the planet. No, a singing jewel will descend from the heavens and mystically bless you with fabulous space-time powers.

Now, the Daily Mail (right, we've heard the Daily Fail jokes, no need to remind us) already has about the crappiest reputation that a newspaper (and, I use the term loosely) can have. So, perhaps this does little to harm their reputation. But what this absolutely does do is raise Cracked's reputation among lots and lots of people, for responding to someone copying their stuff with typical and fitting humor and wit.

And, really, that's a point that we've been trying to make for over a decade: when faced with these kinds of situations, so many people get so focused on "punishing" other people, without ever bothering to think about what it means for their own reputation. Yet, when there are opportunities to embrace those things to enhance their own reputation, so few seem willing to do it. Yet, as with so many things, Cracked has it right. The Daily Mail is a joke already. Rather than blasting off a DMCA notice or some sort of legal threat, just make the most of things by reacting humorously and boosting your own reputation.